The Match Factory has picked up international sales for Julian Roman Pölsler’s adaptation of Marlene Haushofer’s bestselling novel The Wall (Die Wand) which has begun shooting in Upper Austria.

Martina Gedeck – known to international audiences from her roles in Bella Martha and The Lives Of Others – plays a woman who wakes up one morning in a mountain hut cut off from the rest of civilisation by an insurmountable wall of glass, with only a dog, cow and cat for company.

The production by Vienna-based coop99 Filmproduktion and Rainer Kölmel’s Munich outfit Starhaus Filmproduktion has backing from broadcasters BR, ARTE and ORF with funding from the Austrian Film Institute (ÖFI), Vienna Film Fund, FFF Bayern, the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and Eurimages.

Almost 20 years ago, Karin Brandauer, the wife of actor-director Klaus-Maria Brandauer, had been planning to direct her own adaptation of Haushofer’s novel which has been translated into 17 languages and found readers in over 80 countries. These plans had to be abandoned after Brandauer’s untimely death in November 1992 at the age of 47.

After the initial shoot in the Gosau region of Upper Austria during June, the production will continue during the following seasons with principal photography wrapping next year.

The Wall will then be released theatrically later in 2011 by Kinowelt in Germany.

Meanwhile, shooting has also begun on writer-director Maggie Peren’s Die Farbe des Ozeans which Starhaus Filmproduktion is producing with Südart Filmproduktion, noir filmproduktion and Spain’s El Olivio at locatoins in Alicante and Gran Canaria.

 
Sabine Timoteo, Friedrich Mücke, Alex Gonzalez and Hubert Kounde star in a story of how the paths of two German tourists, a Spanish policeman and an African refugee cross on the island of Gran Canaria.
 
Backing has come for the project from the broadcasters BR, SWR and ARTE as well as FFF Bayern, MFG Baden-Württemberg and the German Federal Film Board (FFA), the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF).

 

Sabine Timoteo, Alex Gonzalez and Hubert Kounde star in a story of how the paths of a German tourist, a Spanish policeman and an African refugee cross on the island of Gran Canaria.

Backing has come for the project from FFF Bayern and the German Federal Film Board.

Starhaus Filmproduktion was previously known as Kinowelt Filmproduktion until its name change on July 1, 2008 and has a three-year first look deal with the distributor Kinowelt in Leipzig.